Page 62 of Married to the Beast

In the middle of the dark room, lit only but a few corner glows, Aleena was bound to a kind of rough wooden cross in the shape of a large X. Her breasts were bare and two strange men were in the act of ripping off her long flowing skirt. There could be no doubt about their intentions—one of them was palming her breast roughly and the other already had his naked shaft out in his hand.

The Rage took Bear fully then—a fury so intense he lost all cognitive function and became nothing but a beast. His onlythought was to kill the ones hurting his mate—to completely obliterate them so they could never hurt her again!

Lowering his head, he charged forward, goring the male who was fondling his wife’s breast. The male howled in surprise and pain as one of Bear’s horns took him in the kidney. He staggered back and Bear gripped the hand that had been on Aleena’s breast. Twisting ruthlessly, he broke the male’s wrist with a crunching of bones.

“Ow! Son of a bitch!” The male fell crying to his knees, one hand dangling limply as the other reached for the hole in his side which was pouring blood. Bear didn’t spare him any more attention—he turned to the other man who had been ripping Aleena’s skirt.

This attacker still had his shaft in one hand but it had gone as limp as a wetleptanoodle. He put up his free hand, his eyes going wide, as he started to back away.

“We didn’t touch her!” he whined as Bear advanced on him. “I swear we didn’t! And anyway, we were ordered to do it by her stepmother!”

If Bear had been in his right mind, he would have demanded to know if the other male always took orders to beat and rape women. And if he and his friend hadn’t touched Aleena, then why was her lovely face bruised and bloody?

But the Rage still pulsed through him, robbing him of all words but one?—

“MINE!”he roared and lunged forward.

Taking the male’s head between his hands, he wrenched it to one side. There was a horriblecrackand suddenly the male went limp, his body nothing but deadweight.

Bear dropped him and kicked the body furiously—how dare this fucker touch what was his? How dare he hurt the woman Bear loved? How…fucking…dare he?

“Bear…my Bear!”

A soft, broken voice somehow penetrated the Rage that had enveloped him. The red haze cleared somewhat and he blinked and saw that Aleena was still bound to the wooden cross.

“My Bear,” she said brokenly. “He…he’s dead. You can stop—you killed him.”

Bear looked down at the male at his feet and saw that his eyes were rolled up and his head was tilted at an unnatural angle.

As for the other male, he had scooted himself into a corner of the small, dark room where he was mewling in pain and clutching at his still bleeding side.

The immediate threat was over. Now it was time to take his bride and see to her wounds.

40

ALEENA

Aleena had never seen such a terrifying display—not even when the shabby man had attacked her in the alley. Bear’s face had become a twisted mask of rage and he’d killed one man and mortally wounded another in the space of less than three minutes.

Yet when she called his name, it seemed that her voice penetrated the Rage and his eyes went slowly back from bloody red to golden.

“My Bear,” she called again and he blinked and looked up from the carnage he had created to focus on her.

“A-leena?” He said it like her name was a word in a foreign tongue. But every second he was looking more like himself. “Aleena—sweetheart!” He came striding forward.

“My Bear—you came for me!” Aleena might have been shamed to be half-naked in front of him after what the males had tried to do to her, but she was too grateful to see him to care about her partial nudity.

“Did they hurt you?” He cupped her face gently in his big hands, turning it from side to side to see the extent of her injuries. “Gods, I can see that they hit you. But did they…”

“They didn’t change the color of my eyes.” She looked up at him, letting him see that her pale purple eyes remained unchanged. “Though Grindelia told them to.”

“That bitch!” Bear said thickly. He was already working on the ropes that bound her ankles and wrists to the wooden beams. He sucked in a breath when he saw the bruises and raw, red marks on her skin where the rough fibers had scratched her and bitten into her flesh.

“I’ll punish them all!” he growled, more to himself than her. “Nobody hurts my wife and gets away with it!”

“I’mcold,” Aleena whispered. The skin of her bare breasts and chest had broken into gooseflesh. She tried to cover herself with her newly freed arms but she couldn’t hide her shame completely.

“Here, baby.” Rapidly Bear unbuttoned his dress uniform shirt. Pulling it off, he bared his broad chest and draped it around her. The satiny fabric was warm from his body heat and smelled of his spicy, comforting scent. Aleena drew it close around her as he finished unfastening her ankles. Then he lifted her into his arms, cradling her to his broad chest protectively.

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